Page 68 of Smoke Season

11:00 a.m.

A steady rain—sans lightning—began to fall on July 14, and the Flatiron Fire became officially 100 percent contained at 10:00 a.m. on July 15, opening up the river road and clearing the sheriff’s department and ATF to follow up on the search warrant they had now served to John Fallows. According to Mel, who had heard it from Lewis, Fallows still sat in county lockup, unable to make bail.

True was thankful; the reprieve from worry of retaliation had given the Bishops time to access emergency funding provided to Carbon fire victims, which enabled them to replace Annie’s lost prescriptions and pay for the upcoming trip to Seattle for surgery. Holding that voucher in her hands had felt a whole hell of a lot better, Mel had told True, than depositing Fallows’s payments ever had. And if Mel had felt any prickling of doubt over handing over perfectly functional cash, True was certain it was easily offset by the relief at knowing Annie’s breathing became steadier each day, her energy returning in the fresh air as she awaited surgery in the city. According to Sam, she had even taken to jumping on the bed in the hotel.

True had been there in person to witness the ATF raid of Fallows’s property, rolling up to the Outsider the moment she was granted official access, her rapid tag finally put to legitimate use. To say it was asatisfying moment would be the understatement of the year. Just as Fallows hadn’t been able to get at them in the past two days, he certainly couldn’t touch them now. He couldn’t even get his grubby grip on his son; according to Sam, who’d heard it at the Eddy, Chris Fallows had fled north to the Alberta oil fields before the smoldered remains from the Flatiron Fire had even cooled, and could any of them blame him? Sam said he just wondered if it was even far enough ... After all, he himself had to put more than one international border between himself and trouble back in the day.

Mel always found it strangely poetic that mop-up—the practice of ensuring every ember was out—could prove as taxing and as tedious as fire containment in the earliest stage. A fire was handled with painstaking, tender care at its conception and at its death, with a desperate pummeling in between.

As a result of her pending disciplinary review and potential investigation after the events on the river road, she’d been assigned to cold trailing, a tedious task that had her guiding the rookies over every square inch of the fire perimeter on foot, putting out every live ember along the western slope of Flatiron Peak. It also kept her from her family, but only for the short term. She’d join Sam and the girls in time for Annie’s surgery.

“We have to make sure there is absolutely no heat left to escape,” she told Deklan, who had regained most of his previous swagger, confidently stomping out hot spots again. The sight was a balm to Mel’s tender, singed soul.

As they traversed the mountain, they rehabilitated fire lines, laboriously shoveling and raking back the soil they had displaced only days ago in order to offset the risk of erosion in the coming weeks and months. The ash mixed with the mud from the rain to produce a thick, heavy sludge that resembled brown-gray cement.

“This is bullshit,” Deklan declared, newly released back to fieldwork by Carbon General, and while Mel agreed wholeheartedly, she threw herself into the backbreaking task, relishing each protest of her muscles. She’d probably be pulling this grunt-work duty for a long time to come, but it beat losing her job by a mile. And it was the least she could do after putting Deklan’s life at risk. After abandoning her crew.

The drizzle finally let up as demobilization began, the sky a stark slate of gray that blended with the still ever-present smoke as each interstate agency, private hand crew, and celebrated hotshot crew rolled out of Carbon one by one to the waves and cheers of the community. Most residents who had sheltered at the high school and then at the fairgrounds had spent their idle time making posters on sheets of cardboard repurposed from emergency food shipments, which they now displayed proudly.Thank you, firefighters!read most of them, with a smattering ofKeep Oregon Green!(double meaning implied) andWe love you, hotshots!

The ammo box of money True had stashed in the crook of the tree at Temple Bar was never found. Mel went down to the raft take-out at her first opportunity, only to find the tree hollow empty. Maybe Fallows had sent one of his crew members down to retrieve what was his, or maybe one of the first responders to clear the river road had spotted it first. Mel didn’t care which. She, and Annie, had what they needed.

At the Outsider, True turned from the sight of the red and blue lights still pulsing over at the Fallows property and looked northeast, where she could already make out a swath of charred forest through the haze of the smoke. It still smoldered, gaping like an open wound, and she knew it would hurt like one, too, at least until the earth began to heal itself.

Her property was intact, right down to the chicken wire lining her garden fence and her welcome mat at her yurt door. Just a half mile down the road, the Eldersons’ place had been wholly consumed, while next door to them, the Chandlers’ home still stood. What stroke of luckspared some Carbon residents but not others? She worried the green rapid tag in her hands. So many folks had never been able to use them, Sam included. It gave True an idea, just a little sprout of one, but that was enough to give her a sense ofdoing. Of helping, in some small way.

Retreating to her neglected art studio, she pawed through her many half-welded metal pieces, trying to find just the right ones. It felt weird to fire up her welding torch, the heat and the fire feeling altogethertoo soon, but the end result proved worth it. Wiping the sweat from her face as she lifted her welding mask, she surveyed the 3D iron sculpture of a mountain she’d created. It stood taller than her.

She carefully separated the ends of the cheap twine attached to her rapid tag and affixed the tag to one of the interconnected bars of iron that formed the mountain. Stepping back to survey her work, she smiled, then hopped back into her truck to drive into town.

At the River Eddy, as she’d predicted, residents filled the bar on this first day back to business as usual in Carbon, mostly just trading war stories and commiserating with one another. True explained her idea to Kim, who silenced the crowd with one of her earsplitting wolf whistles.

“Any of you all who have rapid tags you couldn’t use, give them here,” she announced. “Truitt is collecting them for a ... What is it for?” she asked True.

“An art installation,” True said. “A memorial of sorts ... to acknowledge all the town lost.”

Some residents looked skeptical, most just looked battle-worn, but many dug into their pockets or went out to their cars to retrieve their sheriff’s-department-issued rapid tags. Most were wrinkled, soot- and ash-stained from being pressed into use at road junctions, allowing residents reentry to their homes, but some still looked painfully brand-new, the shiny green cardstock stiff. Those, True knew, belonged to residents who never used them, their homes taken completely by the blaze.

Back at the Outsider, she affixed all these rapid tags to the mountain sculpture, until the peak, previously a cold metallic gray, looked alive with fluttering green paper. If only Flatiron’s rebirth would be asswift, True thought. She added Sam’s rapid tag last, at the very tip of the metal peak, the nameBishop, 2303 Highline Roadstill visible in smudged Sharpie ink.

She’d just finished when she heard the crunch of tires on her drive, and she tensed before remembering that it couldn’t be Fallows. Still, she couldn’t have been more surprised to see whodidroll down her drive. Emmett bounded out of the passenger side of the rental car first, followed by his mother, alighting onto the gravel with more restraint.

“True!” Emmett had crossed the tiny yard, leaped up the steps to the deck, and flung his arms around True’s torso before she could even brace herself for the tackle. They both stumbled a step or two, Emmett laughing, True clutching him so they wouldn’t fall, before she could recover enough to look over his head at Vivian.

“What are you guys doing here?” She hoped her surprise didn’t sound like a lack of hospitality. How had they even found the place?

Vivian stepped up onto the deck of the yurt to join them. “I’m sorry to just show up like this,” she said. “We asked around in town, and I wanted to call first, but, well ... cell service doesn’t seem to work out here.”

True nodded. It most certainly didn’t.

“We’ve been in a hotel,” Emmett offered.

“We got as far as Ashland,” Vivian filled in, “before I-5 closed due to the secondary fire.”

True felt a lurch of misgiving. With all that had been going on, it hadn’t occurred to her that the Wus might have gotten caught in the clutches of Carbon’s emergency as well. But the highway was open now, and they could have gone home. Yet they were here. Why?

“We’ve been watching all the news,” Emmett said, spinning away from True to gaze out over the property. Smoke still lingered in the air, but she could tell when he spotted the river by his quick smile of recognition. He raised his gaze to study the blackened mountainsides next, parts of Flatiron Peak still smoldering, and when he twisted backaround to address True again, his face was solemn. “It was a megafire, just like you said.”

Vivian took a step closer, joining them on the deck. “I was so scared, True.”

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